Racing line optimization @ race optimal

Race Optimal (www.raceoptimal.com) is a project aimed at creating an effective and fully automated process for racing line optimization in order to produce a database of racing line for racing circuits around the world. The ideal racing line is defined as the trajectory around a track that allows a given vehicle to traverse the circuit in the minimum time. In practice, it is an abstraction that varies with track, environmental conditions, vehicle type and condition, competitive traffic, and other factors. A certain extent of the talent possessed by the elite driver is the ability to perceive this optimal path and its variations, as well as to navigate it as quickly as possible. Until now, automated methods have struggled to match the performance of human-generated or human-guided racing lines [1]. This article describes the optimization engine and representation scheme used at Race Optimal to compute realistic and high performing racing lines for a wide variety of vehicle types.